Futuristic fantasy: Eugene Souleiman’s glitter hair for Thom Browne

Eugene Souleiman created a stunning structured look for Thom Browne’s SS18 Paris Fashion Week show last week, with silver glitter accents giving a dazzling finish to complement the fashion collection, which was inspired by space and childhood fairy tales.

“This isn’t a normal show, it’s another level of fashion and I absolutely adore it. It’s a production, theatre. I love the creative side of fashion shows like this, real design. This is stuff you see in the V&A museum; it’s memorable, it’s part of fashion history and also its cultural history. Fashion is a part of our culture – it’s certainly part of mine”, said Eugene about the collection.

Eugene said he built on the designer’s initial brief to create the appearance of bald models:

“I received a brief from Thom Browne which was to create the appearance of models with bald heads. I started to work with that in mind but built upon it. My initial idea was something mannequin-esque, something seamless and shiny, where hair doesn’t look like hair at all. I sent him some references from a British artist I really love called Allen Jones and it really worked. Sculpture is the only way to describe these girls; we’re turning them into living mannequins. Working with Thom is about creating magic, something out of this world.”

“The idea is to get this hair as flat, shiny and synthetic-looking as possible. We really want the girl’s hair to not look like hair, we want it to look like what you would see on a mannequin – like it’s been cast.”

How Eugene created the look:

To start, Eugene sectioned hair into two halves, the top section was tied into a tight bun and the bottom was left loose, this formed the base of the look. A generous amount of EIMI Stay Essential was applied throughout in order to ensure hair remained in place and was easy to mould.

Next, the ghd Narrow Dressing Brush was used to apply EIMI Sculpt Force to small sections of hair before being sprayed with water. Each section of hair was then wrapped around the bottom of the head and patted securely down to give the appearance of plastic.

Once the bottom half was secure, the top half was untied and split into two smaller sections. The first section was treated as before with EIMI Sculpt Force brushed throughout and wrapped around the back of the head to create a smooth effect.

With the remaining section of hair, Eugene wrapped it tightly around the front of the head to create ‘the ring of Saturn’. Once in place, a net was held securely over the hair and the ghd Air Hair Dryer was used to create the appearance of smoothness.

When the hair was perfectly in place, Eugene gave it one last blast with the ghd Air Hair Dryer to toughen product used and reinforce ‘the ring of Saturn’.

To finish the look, a powder brush was used to add silver glitter to the front and sides of the hair.